Schroeder ex-ally seeks anti-SPD alliance of left

Oskar Lafontaine, the black sheep of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats, has urged left-wing parties to join forces to defeat the government, according to the top-selling newspaper Bild.

Once chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Mr Schroeder's Finance Minister until they fell out in 1999, Mr Lafontaine could be a rallying figure for left-wing groups in an early election that Germany seems set to hold in September.

"If, despite the short amount of time available, a left-wing movement like Italy's Olive Tree alliance could be formed, I would be there," Mr Lafontaine said in a Bild interview made available yesterday.

He added that he was confident such a group could muster the five per cent of votes required to win seats in Parliament.

Mr Lafontaine has persistently criticised Mr Schroeder's Agenda 2010 social welfare reforms, ranging from new charges for visiting doctors to the Hartz IV labour market reforms launched this year that included cuts to unemployment benefit.

"I have always said that I would end my (SPD) membership if the SPD went into the election with Agenda 2010 and Hartz IV," he said.

A Lafontaine aide said yesterday she could not comment on whether he had actually left the party. The left has so far been divided. The post-communist PDS has support in formerly communist-ruled East Germany, but has been viewed with suspicion in the west.

PDS Chairman Lothar Bisky poured cold water on Mr Lafontaine's proposal yesterday, saying there probably was not enough time to organise a left-wing alliance before the election.

"I doubt whether there's enough time to create it," the Freie Presse newspaper quoted Mr Bisky as saying in a preview of today's edition.

A left-wing party calling itself "Election Alternative" (WASG) stood for the first time in Sunday's North Rhine-Westphalia election which ended the SPD's 39-year control of the industrial state. However, it received only 2.2 per cent of the vote.

Some observers believe SPD party chief Franz Muentefering's assault on capitalist "locusts", such as speculative investors and firms that shift jobs from Germany, helped prevent some traditional SPD voters from abandoning the party.

However, Mr Schroeder has signalled he will not reverse his pro-market policies and will promise more reforms if he wins a third term.

"Social Democrats, trade unionists, the PDS and the WASG must join forces in a new party and present a contrast to the coalition of all parties in Berlin that want to scrap the welfare state," Mr Lafontaine said.